Tropical Storm Chantal May Have Broken Up

Tropical Storm Chantal is looking less and less like a huge problem on the newest public advisory from the National Hurricane Center (NHC). At 8 am EDT, the National Weather Service reported that the storm probably no longer carries tropical storm force winds.

Their statement said that the former Tropical Storm Chantal is most likely now just a tropical wave. They have a reconnaissance plane heading into the area to verify their information.

Chantal never got close to hurricane status in its roughly west northwest movement across the Caribbean.

At 8 AM she was reported to be about 155 miles south southwest of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic with maximum sustained winds of 45 miles per hour. The storm is moving at roughly 29 miles per hour.

At the present time, there are still tropical storm warnings in effect for the entire coast of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, as well as the Turks and Caicos, and the southeastern Bahamas.

If the reconnaissance plane reports back that Chantal is no longer a tropical storm, the NHC will then be able to discontinue making reports on the storm later this morning.

However, residents of the affected areas should still pay attention, because it’s possible that rainfall of as much as 10 inches could still strike in some of the areas impacted by the tropical wave.

Fortunately, there is very little or no chance now that Tropical Storm Chantal can develop into a hurricane.

UPDATE: The 11 AM EDT advisory from the NHC says that Chantal still has tropical storm force winds of up to 45 miles per hour. Keep your eyes on your local weather report, because we’re still not quite out of the woods with Tropical Storm Chantal.